Sorry, long post. There was a lot of substance I wanted to address. I would also add that there are times I do not fully follow your meaning. However I would say going into this, kudos, you seem to have hit upon some really interesting ideas.

I would say that astrology isn't a predictor of personality but a predictor of archetypal influences.[...]The mechanism I would compare to the mechanism which governs the geography of phenome expression. [...]...it's not empirical but I would say that it does leverage a modicum of empiricism to access instinctive archetypal, stereotypical, quadratypical, and dodecatypical intuitions.[...]I feel that we shouldn't insist that the separation [science and mysticism] is 'really real' because we know that the cosmos, on some level, is also a singularity and not only duality or a multiplicity.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by “archetypal influences”. There seems to be a real tension in the phrase, it borders on being an oxymoron: “archetypal” suggests something interpretive (and so unmeasurable); conversely “influence” suggest something causative (and so measurable).

In any case it does not matter. The fundamental question is: are your 'archetypal influences' measurable? If the answer is yes then they are the proper subject of scientific analysis and methodology. If the answer is no then they do not tell us about the way things are. As I said above, you cannot have it both ways.

If a mechanism has predictive power then it is necessarily testable. Whether it be “personality” or “archetypal influences”, you are making the claim that astrology is a predictor. The problem with astrology is that it is not testable. It was this fundamental realisation that lead to the divergence of astronomy and astrology. Back in the day Johannes Kepler was both the court astronomer and astrologer; they were considered the same thing. What pioneers like Kepler and Galileo did was apply method, historically this period marked the divergence of knowledge (astronomy) and myth (astrology). [As a side note: it is interesting that this is the same period where people began to accept the sun-centred universe. It has always struck me that astrology implies the old homocentric view of the universe; the prehistoric belief that the stars are all about us...]

Astrology has no mechanism,: it does not test its results; there is no control; there is no method of falsification etc... This means that to call Astrology 'predictive' is a fundamental misunderstanding of what prediction is. If astrology really were predictive then it should and could be a science.

This also means that I think you are entirely in error when you propose there is not a sharp division between science and mysticism. There absolutely is, but it is one of methodology not subject matter.

I agree that science is out of balance. Most of modern science rests on the hidden premise that the behaviour of the big stuff is explicable by an explanation of the smallest parts. I think there is a real need to look at the universe at different complexities scale. I would argue we are beginning to do this more. During the 19th and 20th Centuries we saw a divergence of scientific disciplines, further and further specialisation. However we are beginning to see convergence again: eg physics, chemistry, biology, geology, ecology, meteorology all informing the new discipline of planetary science; or Chaos Theory marking the coming together of work from meteorologists (Lorenz), mathematicians (Mandelbrot), chemists (Belousov), biologists (Yorke), and more; work that lead to a new understanding about the very shape of nature itself. But these advances in working out the way things are at different complexities of scale come from science and method not mysticism and interpretation. Your example of phenome expression is a good one, what was a mystery has recently had much light thrown upon it by a combination genetics and fractal mathematics. Slowly it is coming into the realm of data and method.

So prima facie there is a case to be made that there are deep patterns (what you refer to as archetypes) which science has overlooked. Having said that I think to allow for the mystical or archetypical to stand as knowledge about these deep patterns, only reinforces the status quo. When Lovelock first proposed Gia he was either ignored or attacked by the scientific community because he was talking about the same kind of things mystics and hippies were. For years his work suffered from this caricature. It is the bizarre unverifiable claims that astrologers make which makes it impossible to get serious scientific interest in examining the psychological effects of birth dates.

2. Archetypes and Language:

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We can access these archetypes instantly, and even refine the raw distinctions into quite specific esoteric stereotypes. 'Spring in Paris is most beautiful'[...].

Your point about our use of language is a really interesting. As I said above I don't think archetypes can lead us to knowledge about the way things are. I would make one large exception; that is the shape of our minds. You are correct, our use of language is archetypical. Plato understood this, and like you, wished to move from language to reality. Thus was born the theory of forms: because the archetype was necessary for our understanding so they must exist. You seem to me making a similar move. Because I use the archetype of “Paris in the Spring” so there is such a thing as “Paris in the Spring”.

What I could not discern from what you wrote is how far you take this. I assume that you would not argue that because we linguistically understand the archetypical unicorn so the unicorn actually exists. I assume you would say that the unicorn is a conflagration of the horse and a horn. In which case why should not the same be true of “Paris in the spring”? You seem to imply that this phrase refers to some deep archetype that have existence independent of us. Why can they not be understood as a deep archetype that exists as a conflagration of subjective associations, images and concepts: birth, growth, sexuality, Napoleonic architecture, the view from the opera house, gauloises and coffee....

I agree that we have a particular way of understanding things- what you call intuition. I even accept the general thesis of Chomsky that there is a deep grammar of humanity. The question is what does this tell us?

3. Synthesis:

While I disagree with you that mysticism and science is a false division, there is one false division that we constantly make. We like to think of the universe and us. The division between subject and object. This division is so profound it dictates grammar. But in reality we are an integrated part of a far greater whole, there is no line where we end and the universe begins.

In this sense patterns in ourselves are patterns within the universe. So I think there is some truth to your position. We understand the world archetypically, our language relies upon archetypes, we are intuitive and think in narratives. This way of existing did not spring from a vacuum, it rests in the biology of our brains, and these are shaped and moulded by our environment. To say I am conscious is to say the universe is conscious. To say that I think in archetypes is to say the universe thinks in archetypes.

Archetypes exist because they exist in us. However where I think you are wrong is that while archetypes exist in themselves it does not follow that their content is true. You seem to be conflating the two. Astrology tells us something about human society and history [it should be noted that modern astrology uses the Babylonian model, there are others such as the Mayan model that are lost to us; not all astrology is dodecatypical!], it even tells us something profound about complexity in nature and biological organisation; but, it does not tell us about the real effects of the stars on humanity. To gain knowledge of that we require method.

« Last Edit: April 29, 2010, 11:28:46 AM by penfold »

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"Goodness is about what you do. Not who you pray to." - Terry Pratchett

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by “archetypal influences”. There seems to be a real tension in the phrase, it borders on being an oxymoron: “archetypal” suggests something interpretive (and so unmeasurable); conversely “influence” suggest something causative (and so measurable).

Yes, I don't exactly know what I mean by that either, not because I'm pulling terms out of, uh, nowhere, but because what I'm trying to get a glimpse at is such an esoteric layer reality. The archetype itself may not have an actual existence - there may be no such thing as "Italian food" as an existential object, but as an essential subject it's just fine. The tension in the phrase maybe accurately reflects the tension of the referent. It literally is partially real and partially unreal - the thin air at the top of the noosphere or the far infra extreme of the semiotic continuum.

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are your 'archetypal influences' measurable? If the answer is yes then they are the proper subject of scientific analysis and methodology. If the answer is no then they do not tell us about the way things are. As I said above, you cannot have it both ways.

They are measurable qualitatively but not noumenally. There is an archetypal influence, but no archetype. Seemingly preposterous, but I think of it as just symmetry. Objects are governed by causality, subjects are the opposite - they both cause causality, and cause nothing both exist everywhere and nowhere at all. Not much different than the laws of physics really, just that the laws of the psyche are as plastic and obscure as the laws of physics are observable and rigid. I can't have it both ways but I think that clearly the universe DOES have it both ways.

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The problem with astrology is that it is not testable. It was this fundamental realisation that lead to the divergence of astronomy and astrology. Back in the day Johannes Kepler was both the court astronomer and astrologer; they were considered the same thing.

Yes, and I'm totally on board with this. I have no agenda to try to make astrology a scientific discipline, I'm just trying to say that science should devote some time and resources to addressing the 'who' and 'why' questions of our existence without reducing them to 'what' and 'how'. I think that astrology is looking was the right area...'when', but that it's value may not have anything to do with the planets themselves, and certainly has nothing to do with stars, it's just about time.

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[As a side note: it is interesting that this is the same period where people began to accept the sun-centred universe. It has always struck me that astrology implies the old homocentric view of the universe; the prehistoric belief that the stars are all about us...]

Yes, in fact there is sort of an astro-historical book which I recently read which really bases an entire thesis on that which I've really latched onto. Forget the name at the moment but the author makes a great case for that period (correlated to the astrological significance of course) being the most recent Grand paradigm shift, which he suggests, and I would welcome, is currently being reconciled. Not that we're going to start believing in a homocentric exterior universe (haha), but that the classical, alchemical type of modeling is revealing of our interior architecture. The psyche is homocentric.

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This also means that I think you are entirely in error when you propose there is not a sharp division between science and mysticism. There absolutely is, but it is one of methodology not subject matter.

Yes, there is a sharp division of methodology, but I think subject matter also, and that is the part I would like to see reconciled. Some part of science should make it their business to actively address the who and why side of the cosmos and factor it in to a new cosmology. I honestly have no interest in trying to make anything unreal more real. Not looking even at the possibility of anything supernatural at all, just trying to deeply and fully embrace all that we collectively agree is ordinary and natural. We think, we feel, our lives has meaning. I just don't want that left of the big map is all. Without it, it can't even begin to claim to be the whole story and to imply that it is can be as damaging in it's way as mystical apophenia (more on that later).

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However we are beginning to see convergence again

Yes, and I would like to believe this conversation is, in it's own irrelevant way, part of that.

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Your example of phenome expression is a good one, what was a mystery has recently had much light thrown upon it by a combination genetics and fractal mathematics. Slowly it is coming into the realm of data and method.

Cool, I'd be interested in finding out more about that.

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You seem to me making a similar move. Because I use the archetype of “Paris in the Spring” so there is such a thing as “Paris in the Spring”.

I try to avoid the Platonic gutterball, because I think that it goes too far to say that archetypes exist in the same way as ordinary things exist. They exist in the sense that their influence shows up. We recognize a square as being square - we can't not see it as a square. There seems to be potential for squareness built into spatial order but it's like trying to pick out frequencies of color from white light. You need a prism. Astrology tries to use time as a crude blurry prism for human identity and zeitgeist.

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Why can they not be understood as a deep archetype that exists as a conflagration of subjective associations, images and concepts: birth, growth, sexuality, Napoleonic architecture, the view from the opera house, gauloises and coffee....

They could be but the conflagrating process seems no less obscure. Meaning presents as if a gestalt - holographically referencing associations but possessed of novelty. Expressions are 'coined'. They go viral. It's like 'isn't the internet just a conflagration of a computer and a telephone'. True enough on one level, but you completely lose any sense of the meaning of the thing you are trying to describe, so it actually disinforms. This is what I feel like is happening with the conventional scientific worldview, it's calling consciousness a conflagration of neural phenomena while promoting randomness, chaos, and nothingness as the verifiable source of everything meaningful to us.

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I agree that we have a particular way of understanding things- what you call intuition. I even accept the general thesis of Chomsky that there is a deep grammar of humanity. The question is what does this tell us?

I think it tells us that we are not as alone as we think in the universe. Consciousness is a conversation between different parts of the brain. Some of these parts may not say much for most people most of the time, like any organ or tissue in our body, it's going along doing it's thing and not bothering us most of the time - it's small still voice drowned out by the highway traffic of postmodern economaniac fugue, until it, for whatever reason or no reason, it lays some intuitive or instinctive awareness on us.

I like some of the implications of Jaynes 'Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral mind' in that it seems not impossible that our brain has other sentient or quasi-sentient structures in it we are no longer ordinarily aware of. Perhaps a chunk from a dead-end hominid here, or a freakishly wise amphibian there... Anyways, such a chunk may have entirely different ways of organizing the data of our perception. It may be completely oblivious to our momentary concerns but has a wide angle lens on certain incoming events. What looks like precognition to the conscious mind is simply a neural smoke signal from our far-sighted scout. Maybe it doesn't know we exist or who it's scouting for, but it speaks in hunch and it has a job to do.

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To say I am conscious is to say the universe is conscious.

Yes. That's my main theme that I feel science hasn't stopped denying. That denial is it's version of homocentric bias.

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Archetypes exist because they exist in us. However where I think you are wrong is that while archetypes exist in themselves it does not follow that their content is true.

Yes, great point and absolutely true. Woe to the person who releases the steering wheel of skepticism to the chaos of apophenia. This is indeed the source of the darkest effects of religion and mental illness. Truth, no. Truths, lies, mistakes, partial truths, misinterpretations, delusions, illusions, epiphanies, revelations, definitely. Caveat emptor.

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Said the desaturated right leaning, pseudorealistic grinning cat with sinister eyes to the supersaturated left leaning, iconic-cartoon grinning alien with comical eyes.

« Last Edit: April 29, 2010, 08:29:37 PM by Immediacracy »

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Maybe I just can't get enough o that polite, logical, ad hominem attacking hospitality. Especially on my own thread. Again, the Notify button works both ways.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I have seen that kind of reaction from some people when I post about these kind of things in public place, but I always notice that what they say doesn't bother me, because I don't see that it is likely to be true. Say it's boring, hypomanic drivel that is lacking in some particular veracity that I hadn't though of - sure, that might bother me, but that's why I'm here in the first place - to see if I can't find someone who will corroborate or invalidate some or all of the things I'm talking about without simply regurgitating the prepackaged conventional wisdom that I already know by heart. Logical fallacies, Ockham's Razor, extraordinary claims, etc. I know all that already. I'm old. What is a little irritating is to be drawn into something because of who someone accuses me of being rather than some issue they have with what I'm saying. What do I care if you don't like me? I don't even know you? Why does anyone care if they like someone or not online? Donno, like I said, I'm old. If u were on Mafia Wars I'd kill you and then friend you. That's how I roll.

Instead, someone tell me something BRILLIANT about how the whiteness in the color white is accomplished. No BS about wavelengths, wavelengths aren't white. You can write me an equation that can be plotted out graphically in the shape of anything, but can you write me an equation that when solved forms a precise chromaticity-qualia? A something something something = {BEHOLD!}? ' Color is meaning you can see. Nothing like it appears anywhere in the Cosmos except for in subjective, sentient beings. Doesn't anyone find that strange, or difficult to reconcile with a materialistic-conventional worldview?

If you are thinking this is easy, then you haven't thought about it enough. You haven't even seen the elephant in the room yet and you are still trying to convince me that the monkey riding on top of it eats 500 pounds of peanuts a day. I'm not making special claims or evoking a universe of woo, I'm just trying to thoroughly describe, with the highest degree of accuracy I can, the ordinary experience of ordinary everyday life within the largest possible scientific framework. No leaving out the weird parts. I want my map of the cosmos to be good enough that someone could use it to make another one if they have to - and I don't want to shortchange that cosmos of the good stuff.

To say my positions are not well thought out is confusing to me. If anything, they're overthought. Deluded, maybe, but trust me, I have given these issues more thought every morning before breakfast than most people do in a lifetime. I am a veritable Chuck Norris of The Hard Problem of Consciousness. So I'm here to try to inform, provoke, question, encourage, collaborate, learn all I can from others, but their opinions about about me personally or my ideas are not particularly valuable to anyone. Sorry If I'm long winded and pretentious, but like I said, I've got a lot of Chuck Norrising to do.

I appreciate the support. Atheistic Honesty is my kind of honesty.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

Lots of dishonest, inarticulate, irrational and impolite people do come to this site. And there are many people here willing to confront them.

But sometimes people jump the gun, as I think they've done here. You've pointed out that nobody is obliged to read your stuff. This is your thread, which you are hosting respectfully. And you responded calmly (and rather wittily, I thought) to people who merely posted insults. Good attitude.

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I am a veritable Chuck Norris of The Hard Problem of Consciousness.

I take it all back. You deserve everything you get. Chuck Norris? Sheesh. I'd give you Bruce Lee. Or even Jackie Chan. Not Norris.

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Color is meaning you can see. Nothing like it appears anywhere in the Cosmos except for in subjective, sentient beings

Right. If there was no life, the universe would be invisible, silent, formless, tasteless, odourless and untouchable. Therefore our experience of the universe is our creation.

As regards the limitations of science, I also agree with you (somewhat).

My view is that the foundation of science is philosophy:

1. The practice of science (the scientific method) is defined by philosophers - philosophers of science, to be precise.

2. The product of science is knowledge. Define knowledge. How do we know that we know something? How do we know that we're not mistaken? Those questions are addressed by another branch of philosophy, epistemology.

3. And even if we do know something through science, the question immediately arises, what should we do with that knowledge? Does splitting the atom mean bombs or energy or both or neither? Science can't address that question - but ethics, the study of moral philosophy, can.

If there was no life, the universe would be invisible, silent, formless, tasteless, odourless and untouchable

Exactly, and since we know that consciousness can voluntarily direct changes in the nervous system, there must be some level where the universe is intimately receptive to consciousness - giving and receiving through a common logos. The invisible silent formless universe must, on some level at least, understand exactly how the things it lacks work in order for living things to be able to produce them. On one level, it is clearly impossible for a phenomenon like a life form to create something like color or flavor out of a universe which lacks them, but on another level that is exactly what it appears to be doing. To me, that is science.

I agree with you generally about the limitations of science but I have less respect for distinctions between bodies of knowledge. I feel like 'science' is ultimately charged with the mission of building a complete theory of everything. It can't leave out the most important part (our own imagination) and call it complete. It's nice to keep our understandings orderly and have words to describe our categories, but ultimately it's going to be those kinds of linguistic academic formalities that are going to have to stretch and blur to accommodate our expanding reality, rather than the other way around.

And yeah, full disclosure, guys like David Chalmers, Richard Tarnas, and even the very woo-infused Ken Wilber are undoubtedly way more Norrisized than I am on this. I'm more of a blue belt I'm guessing.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I've had very little time to respond (and this continues, though be assured I'll wade back in soon enough) - but guys, disagreement in a discussion is not a thing that merits attack.

I may disagree wholeheartedly with Immediacracy on a great many things, but articulate, pleasant, and entertaining debate is a far cry from the usual nonsense we get, and is something that may be argued as being the entire point of coming here in the first place. I've yet to see anything offensive or deserving of vitriol in the thread... debate yes, attack no.

So. Immediacracy, I gotta say - welcome. And let us debate in good nature.

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"But to us, there is but one god, plus or minus one." - 1 Corinthians 8:6+/-2

"must"? Why because YOU say so?No. rocks and ice and such have no capacity for "understanding." Given they aren't living beings or sentient creatures, and all that.

I didn't say that all of the separate forms within the universe have understanding of each other, I'm just saying that just as the universe as a whole has the potential for electromagnetism to exist, the universe as a whole must also have an underlying principle that circumscribes the conditions upon which the development of life, consciousness, and it's relation to other phenomena is predicated.

The brain's ability to present qualia to consciousness and receive voluntary intentions from the self isn't a random magical woo, it's a highly articulated and powerfully self-evident fact which is continuously demonstrated in billions of separate instances the world over. It's not a vague phenomena that can be explained away. A two year old can probably tell you what blue is, but I think it would be hard to find a two year old that can tell you what their own spinal cord is. If brains invented blue, they either have to got the idea from somewhere, or have powers to edit the laws of physics.

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I think your form of woo is just as convoluted and based in wishful/magical thinking as a theist's.

I don't know you but that doesn't surprise me. If you are interested in my opinion of your thinking I would say that your form of skepticism is as stubborn and irrational as a theist. I'm playing the role of the heretic here, and you are playing at protector of the dogma - judgmental, passive aggressive, dismissive. The Southern Baptist approach. The very idea of imagination being taken seriously as a legitimate feature of the universe is personally offensive to you. You project this threat to your own scientific faith out to me personally - ego to ego, rather than hypothesis to hypothesis.

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It's a shame you didn't have the 60s and 70s to live through in an LSD-induced "reality." It probably would have been good stuff for a stoner.

I was born in the late 60s so I am, in some sense, the living legacy of that time. Which was one of the most powerful astrological transits of the 20th century of course. Heh. The 60s were beautiful for some, hell for others. Now it's not beautiful for many and hell for billions more.

Acid is an interesting case though. Consider that LSD is the most powerful consciousness altering substance in the history of the world, and it is also the least tangible. Odorless, colorless, tasteless, pure LSD is potentially life altering in amounts that are scarcely visible - so ephemeral that it has to ride on top of tiny paper icons, water, or gelatin even to be able to handle. It is, for all practical purposes, invisible - and yet the effects are so associated with visual phenomena. Probably just another meaningless coincidence in the meaningless universe, like our multiply-symmetrical icon-avatars are...even though they illustrate my model of the universe precisely.

« Last Edit: April 30, 2010, 11:04:43 PM by Immediacracy »

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

What I can say is that by divesting itself of the moral dimensions and subjective context of universal truths, science has actively or contributed through negligence to many regressive technologies and practices including, but not limited to:

The stifling of innovation and individuality through the perpetuation of fetishized academic formalism.

The dismantling of public services and common wealth in favor of privatization and the withering of shared aesthetic environments in the service of productivity for the sake of productivity.

On these two points I completely agree. I see and feel the "stifling of innovation and individuality" on a regular basis. From the perspective of one virtually insignificant member of the human race, it appears to me that the equity of motivation has shifted from a balance that favored creativity and artisanship to one of almost purely selfish and personal gain. It is the way we are forced to think due to the strength of our survival instincts and the societies in which we live. I tried in vain for half a lifetime to strike a balance between the academic and the creative, and sacrificed my deepest desires on the altar of "academic formalism". I should be a master artisan by now; crafting awe inspiring works of creative genius to be scrutinized and pondered over for millennia to come. There are countless untold talents roaming the halls of Ivy League institutions seeking that doctoral license to be independently wealthy when they should be unleashing the rare and priceless talents which nature has seen fit to endow them with. It is a travesty.

And where would we be without the snake oil salesman trained from birth to build as cheaply as possible and avoid at all costs solving the problems that have become his livelihood. Should he research that cure and effectively render himself useless? Should he share with the world his formula for clean plentiful energy and thereby sacrifice his billions? One phrase comes to mind that sums it up nicely: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." But not in our world; where individualism reigns supreme and the rich get richer while the poor wither and suffer needlessly. And so we must all answer that all important question for ourselves; why should we care?

I like this site. People post frank, articulate, logical and polite posts. Immediacracy is the exact opposite of that. Why is he still here? Is it because that he is comic relief or something?

Unjust, inaccurate, impolite and indicating either you haven't read the thread or you just didn't understand it.

Immediacracy is nothing like the the-idiocy that normally present here. He has maintained a polite demeanour even though he has met knee-jerk response from some. So fucking what if you do not agree with what he has to say, he at least is one of those who

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post frank, articulate, logical and polite posts.

The unfortunate aspect of knee-jerk, of course, ......................is the required jerk.

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"...but on a lighter note, demons were driven from a pig today in Gloucester." Bill Bailey

What I can say is that by divesting itself of the moral dimensions and subjective context of universal truths, science has actively or contributed through negligence to many regressive technologies and practices including, but not limited to:

The stifling of innovation and individuality through the perpetuation of fetishized academic formalism.

The dismantling of public services and common wealth in favor of privatization and the withering of shared aesthetic environments in the service of productivity for the sake of productivity.

On these two points I completely agree. I see and feel the "stifling of innovation and individuality" on a regular basis. From the perspective of one virtually insignificant member of the human race, it appears to me that the equity of motivation has shifted from a balance that favored creativity and artisanship to one of almost purely selfish and personal gain. It is the way we are forced to think due to the strength of our survival instincts and the societies in which we live. I tried in vain for half a lifetime to strike a balance between the academic and the creative, and sacrificed my deepest desires on the altar of "academic formalism". I should be a master artisan by now; crafting awe inspiring works of creative genius to be scrutinized and pondered over for millennia to come. There are countless untold talents roaming the halls of Ivy League institutions seeking that doctoral license to be independently wealthy when they should be unleashing the rare and priceless talents which nature has seen fit to endow them with. It is a travesty.

And where would we be without the snake oil salesman trained from birth to build as cheaply as possible and avoid at all costs solving the problems that have become his livelihood. Should he research that cure and effectively render himself useless? Should he share with the world his formula for clean plentiful energy and thereby sacrifice his billions? One phrase comes to mind that sums it up nicely: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." But not in our world; where individualism reigns supreme and the rich get richer while the poor wither and suffer needlessly. And so we must all answer that all important question for ourselves; why should we care?

I agree. Science can be used for good or for bad, and unfortunately business interests have stifled scientific progress in many ways. Quantity is more important than quality for business if it will bring better monetary outcomes, and then some people point the finger at science for lacking progress in cures and important breakthroughs. So many of our best minds are wasting away in business and finance, they go where the money is. What's good for the individual isn't always best for society.

If there was no life, the universe would be invisible, silent, formless, tasteless, odourless and untouchable

Exactly, and since we know that consciousness can voluntarily direct changes in the nervous system, there must be some level where the universe is intimately receptive to consciousness - giving and receiving through a common logos. The invisible silent formless universe must, on some level at least, understand exactly how the things it lacks work in order for living things to be able to produce them. On one level, it is clearly impossible for a phenomenon like a life form to create something like color or flavor out of a universe which lacks them, but on another level that is exactly what it appears to be doing. To me, that is science.

I agree with you generally about the limitations of science but I have less respect for distinctions between bodies of knowledge. I feel like 'science' is ultimately charged with the mission of building a complete theory of everything. It can't leave out the most important part (our own imagination) and call it complete. It's nice to keep our understandings orderly and have words to describe our categories, but ultimately it's going to be those kinds of linguistic academic formalities that are going to have to stretch and blur to accommodate our expanding reality, rather than the other way around.

And yeah, full disclosure, guys like David Chalmers, Richard Tarnas, and even the very woo-infused Ken Wilber are undoubtedly way more Norrisized than I am on this. I'm more of a blue belt I'm guessing.

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If there was no life, the universe would be invisible, silent, formless, tasteless, odourless and untouchable

and Chuck would still be the star .........the universe requires nothing else.

but seriously

I don't know if a complex universe needs an initial consciousness to create consciousness. Neither am I at all certain conscious antenna are necessary for the sound of one thunderstorm's clapping to exist. I understand the philosphical position, but the black cat in the coal mine will still eat the canary even if the canary cannot perceive initially it.

I'm saying that we monkey antenna get to define stuff (purely for ourselves). The fact that the universe existed before we did, doesn't mean that the universe was limited by the lack of us, nor that it consciously strove to diminish that lack by inventing us.

Again my sci-fi predilection allows the idea as "nice", but we have as yet no indication for it to be so.

We do however have imagination, and I feel we are being less than imaginative to posit that scientific evolution will be lacking imagination, or will lack the use of imagination. Just because science does not mechanistically promote woo as a tool, doesn't mean that woo as a subject is ignored.

« Last Edit: May 01, 2010, 12:45:12 AM by kin hell »

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"...but on a lighter note, demons were driven from a pig today in Gloucester." Bill Bailey

There are countless untold talents roaming the halls of Ivy League institutions seeking that doctoral license to be independently wealthy when they should be unleashing the rare and priceless talents which nature has seen fit to endow them with. It is a travesty.

Exactly. There are possibly even more gifted people just struggling to hold down a menial job because they didn't have the kind of temperament required to suffer through 16-20 years of, let's face it, pretty pointless and forgettable education (at least in public schools).

I'm not trying to lay this situation at the feet of scientists, but I do think the big picture can be traced back to the the natural aging of the mechanistic, scientific worldview from the 17th and 18th century. The staggering genius of the Enlightenment, personified in figures like JS Bach and Isaac Newton (an ardent alchemist) was an appropriate first harvest of the Post-Copernican era, and like the classical music of that time, the pinnacles of those particular types of expressed genius will never, and need never be surpassed - but music and science go on. We can't keep listening only to Mozart when there's Pink Floyd and Radiohead to contend with. (The same thing can be seen with 'Classic Rock' - a late midcentury flowering which every new generation is exposed to - completely unlike the music of the early 20th century which was never again appreciated as the dominant popular style - we didn't just keep refining Ragtime and Jazz, we build on it).

So anyways, I think Economics is a big part of that Newtonian world view which reduces human behavior to a mechanical calculus efficiency. Which it great, we need that as a base for the concrete organization of important infrastructures. We also need, however, to move beyond economics if our civilization is to retain any quality of human life. We have reached the point where nobody wants anything but to be tremendously wealthy, which changes wealth from being a function of trade, craft, and production, to being an abstraction unto itself. This malignant anti-socialism is a symptom of an economy which has outgrown it's classical music and spun off into a hideous drone of Industrial noise and commercial pop - rapaciously consuming and exploiting every human impulse towards it's own empty mathematical event horizon from which nothing worth valuing can escape.

Even the ultra wealthy are not served by this cultural evacuation. Neurotic, narcissistic, haunted by paranoia and and familial dysfunction in a world of sycophants and detractors, financial and political leverage become a poisonous addiction. It's no fun for anyone else either, and it's only getting worse...

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

I'm not trying to lay this situation at the feet of scientists, but I do think the big picture can be traced back to the the natural aging of the mechanistic, scientific worldview from the 17th and 18th century.

It is about a worldview; and although I'm not well versed enough to trace its origin, it is most definitely passed down from one generation to the next in much the same way as religion. It is the indoctrinated religion of political affiliation with "freedom" as its God, "capitalism" as its messiah, and the "right to pursue wealth and happiness no matter who or what it destroys" as its essence of spirit. But beware the Anti-Christ: "Socialism". It could destroy our entire way of life by making everyone.............dare I say it...............more equal. But then the wealthiest 1% would suffer terrible devastation and have to sell 15 of their cars and 2 yachts just to feed some lazy 2 year olds in some "Freedom" forsaken ghetto. What a tragedy.

I'm just saying that just as the universe as a whole has the potential for electromagnetism to exist, the universe as a whole must also have an underlying principle that circumscribes the conditions upon which the development of life, consciousness, and it's relation to other phenomena is predicated.

No, your use of "if, then, must" is what is woo, because it is, in fact, baseless and wishful thinking.

The brain's ability to present qualia to consciousness and receive voluntary intentions from the self isn't a random magical woo, it's a highly articulated and powerfully self-evident fact which is continuously demonstrated in billions of separate instances the world over.

This is wholly different than attempting to define the "universe" as a conscious, sentient being that "must" as you say:

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there must be some level where the universe is intimately receptive to consciousness -

and

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The invisible silent formless universe must, on some level at least, understand exactly how the things it lacks work in order for living things to be able to produce them.

In both cases you are attempting to make a lifeless, non-living, non-sentient, non-conscious, non-"selfaware" entity (a collection of rocks, ice, etc) into a sentient thing, or at least a being with some sort of consciousness.

The MUST is what is absurd. It MUST not be at all. It MAY be in your form of WOO.

It's not a vague phenomena that can be explained away. A two year old can probably tell you what blue is, but I think it would be hard to find a two year old that can tell you what their own spinal cord is. If brains invented blue, they either have to got the idea from somewhere, or have powers to edit the laws of physics.

A two year old cannot tell you what blue is, unless that two year old is first taught what "colors" are and that "blue" is a specific name we give that particular color.

And if the two year old happens to be color blind, it's an even less likely.

I don't know you but that doesn't surprise me. If you are interested in my opinion of your thinking I would say that your form of skepticism is as stubborn and irrational as a theist. I'm playing the role of the heretic here, and you are playing at protector of the dogma - judgmental, passive aggressive, dismissive.

Well, if you don't mind my opinion of YOUR thinking, I would say you are very narcissistic and know I am quite able to smell bullshit when I see it, so you're going to attempt to push some buttons you think exist to derail my unfrocking of Oz.

There is nothing "heretical" in your musings, because they are so far not very convincing. I have no "dogma" to "protect." I mean, making the conclusions you do, the universe MUST be conscious because. . . .still trying to figure out why you think the universe must "think" or "understand" anything. . . .is not "heretical," it's truly magical thinking.

I think you would like to think that you have some great truth that no one else has figured out, or on the brink of some awareness that has never been broached, but you would be wrong on both counts.

The Southern Baptist approach. The very idea of imagination being taken seriously as a legitimate feature of the universe is personally offensive to you. You project this threat to your own scientific faith out to me personally - ego to ego, rather than hypothesis to hypothesis.

It's not PERSONALLY offensive, it's just plain wrong. I don't have "scientific faith," and you're dangerously close to revealing your own hidden theism by making that statement, by the way. Are you using a bit of the Trojan Horse approach to garner acolytes? ("I'm an atheist too......but wait, wait, listen to THIS......")

I was born in the late 60s so I am, in some sense, the living legacy of that time. Which was one of the most powerful astrological transits of the 20th century of course. Heh. The 60s were beautiful for some, hell for others. Now it's not beautiful for many and hell for billions more.

Acid is an interesting case though. Consider that LSD is the most powerful consciousness altering substance in the history of the world, and it is also the least tangible. Odorless, colorless, tasteless, pure LSD is potentially life altering in amounts that are scarcely visible - so ephemeral that it has to ride on top of tiny paper icons, water, or gelatin even to be able to handle. It is, for all practical purposes, invisible - and yet the effects are so associated with visual phenomena. Probably just another meaningless coincidence in the meaningless universe, like our multiply-symmetrical icon-avatars are...even though they illustrate my model of the universe precisely.

I'm sure you're a very nice guy. You are certainly entertaining. But you threaten no one's "dogma" any more than people who believe trees have spirits do. It's still all woo.

PS: Being born in the "late 60s" and engaging in the LSD experimentation during the 60s and 70s are two different things. Your conceptual framework reads very much like something that came out of the latter, not the former, regardless of the allegedly astrologically rich period the 60s may have been.

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Not all those who wander are lost; some are buried in my backyard. . .

I don't know if a complex universe needs an initial consciousness to create consciousness.

No, I don't either exactly. I can see why everyone might be getting that out of what I'm saying, but the model I'm trying to get at is a universe which contains the underpinnings of interior consciousness from the start as a property of order itself. Said another way, I propose that the cosmos has to innately be able to make sense before we can make sense of it.

I can't prove that randomness is more likely to be a category of order than the other way around, but it seems likely to me, and in the end it doesn't matter since the only universe we can experience is both teleological and teleonomic. I that when we imagine the big bang we model it from our own perspective, as something we are witnessing from a distance - conceiving it as a point in time and space where time and space explode out of it's opposite (matter/energy). We think of a supernova in surrounded by a black vacuum. But that black vacuum would be space, and the banging would be happening in time, so... there really is no observable big bang.

Since there would be no space outside of the singularity to bang into, it could really be seen as a big merge, where space is suddenly involuted into everywhere. Nothing in the cosmos has ever been outside of the big bang and no point in time can ever escape it either. The big bang is all that is, was, or will be - it just appears that the further you go the closer everything was to everything else.

I think a more coherent model is that the big bang existed, like an archetype does, an event that never actually occurred but out of which all events radiate. The big bang and the big crunch are really the same thing, they are the opposite of 'now'. Matter Energy Time Space is one plane and for us Life Emotion Thought and Behavior is another plane which intersects the first in a very complex way.

To insist that we can model the universe completely while leaving out the I, We, or Us dimensions and reducing it all to an It, is not merely a slight to our sentimentality, it's factually inaccurate. It fails to explain how or why the universe would go to the trouble of generating these illusions of self we all share when all of our mechanical functions could be executed quite automatically in the same way that a computer continues to run with the monitor turned off. Why have a monitor if there's nobody to use it? Why have a monitor port of consciousness and a teleological keyboard and mouse port built in to the great teleonomy machine?

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Neither am I at all certain conscious antenna are necessary for the sound of one thunderstorm's clapping to exist. I understand the philosphical position, but the black cat in the coal mine will still eat the canary even if the canary cannot perceive initially it.

For the first part I'd say that the sound of thunder doesn't need an antenna to exist, but that it needs an antenna that converts to sound to exist as sound. The thunder itself is a multi-layered text - an event of energized matter changing form in space over time, which our particular antenna reads and projects to us ordinarily as sound. If you had a particular kind of synesthesia you might see or taste the thunder.

The black cat example, sure, I'm not saying that what we don't perceive doesn't exist, I'm sort of saying the opposite that we know for certain that there are things which exist which we cannot perceive directly and things which must be inferred logically, and so maybe there are also things which also exist which are difficult to define because they are too close, too far infra to be visible to the mind but they are part of the defining process behind our I's (oof).

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I'm saying that we monkey antenna get to define stuff (purely for ourselves). The fact that the universe existed before we did, doesn't mean that the universe was limited by the lack of us, nor that it consciously strove to diminish that lack by inventing us.

Agree completely. The universe doesn't need our kind of consciousness. It may not even need coral reefs or ocean planets blooming with algae, but it does I think, on some level, know what consciousness is or how it works in the same exact way that it knows what electromagnetism is. You could bump it up one level and say that the universe knows electromagnetism and electromagnetism knows life and life knows feeling and feeling knows thought and thought knows values but it really doesn't change the fact that brain needs to know how to present the various layered texts for conscious interpretation. You may not know what your dream is supposed to mean and the electrochemical impulses that project them may not know either, but between the two there is a dream that contains varying degrees of both sense and nonsense. What is nonsense to our conscious mind may make perfect sens to some other autonomous psychic entity that manages and organizes within the cortex, who knows. The dream has it's own agenda, and it has no agenda - similar to the external cosmos but sort of the other way around - it supports no agenda, it supports countless agendas.

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We do however have imagination, and I feel we are being less than imaginative to posit that scientific evolution will be lacking imagination, or will lack the use of imagination. Just because science does not mechanistically promote woo as a tool, doesn't mean that woo as a subject is ignored.

Fair enough. I mean I still don't think I'm making myself understood about occult stuff yet here - I do not want to encourage science or even the general public to use astrology itself or the like as a tool. Ever. It's really a terrible idea to allow unfiltered intuition to bypass your critical thinking in most cases, not because it's random, but because the sense you can make out of it may lead you somewhere that's not in your best interest. Asking your mind to play tricks on you is an interesting thing to experiment with, but like mind altering drugs, isn't a good lifestyle choice in the long run.

I just want the 'oo' part of woo to be recognized as a method of examining a group of interesting patterns which can be observed throughout the conscious and unconscious universe. By insisting that all phenomena be categorized as absolutely real or unreal, scientific empiricism misses out on a whole continuum of patterns which may in fact be neither real nor unreal but change according to the kind of attention we pay to them. These kinds of patterns, I believe, are sort of the missing base of the cosmic transistor which may tie together subjective meaning with objective substance.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler

No, your use of "if, then, must" is what is woo, because it is, in fact, baseless and wishful thinking.

Otherwise known as hypothesis.

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In both cases you are attempting to make a lifeless, non-living, non-sentient, non-conscious, non-"selfaware" entity (a collection of rocks, ice, etc) into a sentient thing, or at least a being with some sort of consciousness.

I'm starting to see how you are getting something a bit different out of what I've said than what I'm trying to convey. I never have believed that the universe is selfaware. I never believed in Santa, I never believed that the whole universe can hear my thoughts or cares about them. I'm just saying that for there to be electricity, the universe has to first know how it 'wants' electromagnetism to work. Why would it be any different for consciousness? How or why and to what advantage would a monkey develop a collection of tissues which access an ongoing experience that is wholly disconnected, unprecedented, and literally unknowable to the entire rest of the cosmos?

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The MUST is what is absurd. It MUST not be at all. It MAY be in your form of WOO.

Everything I say here is a hypothesis. The hypothesis is that if consciousness exists then the processes which give rise to it and interface with it must 1) be external to consciousness and 2) have enough of an 'understanding' of what it is that it's interacting with to be receptive to it - a common language. 3) That common language is accessed on one 'end' through the body as sympathetic and peripheral nerve signals, and on the other 'end' through the interiority of the psyche in the form of timeless intuitive images and understandings which, through a sort of teleological-teleonomic alchemy give rise to our thoughts and perceptions as human beings.

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A two year old cannot tell you what blue is, unless that two year old is first taught what "colors" are and that "blue" is a specific name we give that particular color.

Nah, they can pretty much figure out what blue is before they learn the name of it from someone. I learned to read pretty much by myself. I was read to but I already knew the alphabet before I was ever formally taught. I was skipped ahead a year in the middle of kindergarten. In kindergarten I was mentioned in the newspaper because I was the only kid who passed the Piaget formal operations volume test a couple years earlier than you are supposed to be able to do that. I was tested a few years later with an IQ of 164 (found out later by hacking into my high school files) and put in a highly gifted school. Whatever, I don't claim to be a prodigy still but I just thought it might help people understand why I don't break down in tears if someone calls me stupid.

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And if the two year old happens to be color blind, it's an even less likely.

Color blindness is an interesting area to poke at, so are conjoined twins. Don't know enough about the subjective experience of either to say much though.

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Well, if you don't mind my opinion of YOUR thinking, I would say you are very narcissistic and know I am quite able to smell bullshit when I see it, so you're going to attempt to push some buttons you think exist to derail my unfrocking of Oz.

That's legitimate. I could be narcissistic but in my mind I'm trying to provoke people into giving me some reasoning I haven't entertained before that will help me either dismiss or confirm these ideas. Sorry though, you have every right to let people know if they get on your nerves.

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still trying to figure out why you think the universe must "think" or "understand" anything. . . .is not "heretical," it's truly magical thinking.

Right, because I don't think that. I'm just saying that the universe put imagination here, not me, so the recipe is in the same box where it keeps 'gravity a la timespace' and 'matter with energy sauce'.

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I think you would like to think that you have some great truth that no one else has figured out, or on the brink of some awareness that has never been broached, but you would be wrong on both counts.

Yes, absolutely guilty as charged, but I have no choice in the matter until people like you can explain to me exactly what I'm missing and what a better way to model it would be.

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It's not PERSONALLY offensive, it's just plain wrong. I don't have "scientific faith," and you're dangerously close to revealing your own hidden theism by making that statement, by the way. Are you using a bit of the Trojan Horse approach to garner acolytes? ("I'm an atheist too......but wait, wait, listen to THIS......")

Funny, you sound personally offended. But no, I've never had any acolytes and I swear I only found this place out of such boredom that I ended up Googling God, haha.

The universe is nothing but patterns. Some of them seek negative electrical charge, some of them seek chocolate. The universe is all entity, living or non, essential or existential. Hello, it's the ENTIRE UNIVERSE.

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I'm sure you're a very nice guy. You are certainly entertaining. But you threaten no one's "dogma" any more than people who believe trees have spirits do. It's still all woo.

Thanks, I like you too. Let's make out. Lol, no, I do like you though, you're reasonably badass and have the common sense that I lack (though I still have a hard time figuring out what I need it for, all I do is sit on my ass and blab. maybe you can tell me why a brain in a jar should care about common sense?) from what I've seen so far - and I'm not even trying to say that you are wrong, I'm just trying to tell you that you are only looking at part of the picture and my model tries to map out the whole picture.

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PS: Being born in the "late 60s" and engaging in the LSD experimentation during the 60s and 70s are two different things. Your conceptual framework reads very much like something that came out of the latter, not the former, regardless of the allegedly astrologically rich period the 60s may have been.

Some of those guys were pretty influential to me, Alan Watts, Leary, Robert Anton Wilson. I met Leary a couple times but never long enough to get into a conversation. More maybe Fritjof Capra and Marilyn Ferguson. Not Deepok though. I've only dropped acid only once, at 16, at Disneyland. That was enough. I got it. Mushrooms maybe a half dozen times. I liked hanging out with people who were tripping though.

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"That which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes–no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that all things physical are information-theoretic in origin and that this is a participatory universe."- John Archibald Wheeler